Realtime Filter to Rasterize to Mask non-destructively

[Guillermo Espertino]

I've been following several threads about masking and there's something that customers often complain about regarding masks in Affinity, and it's the inconvenient workflow for editing them, the lack of filters, etc.
Many people ask features to bring Affinity Photo closer to Photoshop when it comes to editing those masks, but I think it can be done better, and more in line with the unique non-destructive workflow Affinity apps have: Turning a layer or group of layers into a mask non-destructively with a realtime filter.

Affinity Photo already has amazing realtime filters that allow complex editing without having to rasterize the actual layer, making masks act like that seems a natural evolution and makes sense in the big picture, as no big changes have to the UI and it doesn't conflict with the existing features.

Of course I can't say whether the internal architecture allows this approach, but from our perspective as users it would be a huge improvement.

[telemax]

+1

This can be achieved with a group containing a procedural texture:
 

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[Guillermo Espertino]

10 hours ago, telemax said:

This can be achieved with a group containing a procedural texture:

Ah, that's great. Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
It's good to see that there is a workaround to make masks that are non destructive and complex, but it would be lovely if Affinity spared us the work of recreating that setup in a more handy, ready to use, feature.
This method you shared is a great proof of concept that shows that the building blocks for the features are just there, and it's only matter of exposing it in the UI.

I really hope this takes off.